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Am I a GW Alarmist? Are Geologists Scientists?

I’m writing this in Palm Springs where it’s 90 deg. — but not Global Warming.

I was somewhat provoked by seeing my name on a blog by Geoff Derrick to the effect that I was a global warming “alarmist”. Anyone who has read even a scattering of my blogs of the past 3-years knows well that I have always been far from a GW alarmist. One blog said in effect: “Although a careful reading of the geophysical/climate data reveals that the globe is certainly warming, the amount is still very much in doubt. It could be 10% chance of being ‘nothing significant’ to 10%‘chance of catastrophic’.”

Nevertheless, Derrick writes in response to a recent blog by me: “I wonder if you are considering revising your review (sic) of this disgraceful and deceitful Marcott et al paper. Based on the revelations of McIntyre and many other true scientists who do not practice shonky techniques, this paper needs to be withdrawn immediately. It could be worse – you could work at Oregon State Uni. You could also consider mounting a defence (sic) of the paper at Climate Audit, but I suspect that may just too challenging, if not embarrassing…..”
Sincerely, Geoff Derrick”

I submit that this paragraph is riddled with the language of alarmists — eliminating these biased phrases would be better suited to a scientist. I wondered what set him off? I found it buried in my last blog on “earth science in the USA is dead” — it was difficult to find since it was in no way a “review”. But I admit to being caught in a semantics war in the paragraph referring to the new IPCC paper, to wit:
The IPCC paper by Marcott et al deals with paleo-data from sediments that provide information on the temperature history back 11,300 years. I have to agree with critics that they erred by placing the “recent” 150 years of data from tree rings etc. onto their graph of data. Although they do mention in the paper that this last 150 years isn’t their data, and they put it in a different color — that wasn’t enough. There was a too-easy miss-interpretation that it was one set of data, making a “hockey stick”. I apologize for continuing the misleading description.
On this graph, the hockey “stick” is the new data set, the “blade” is the previously well-known historical data for the past 150 years. I did make the resolution problem clear in my next sentence: “Critics said it missed the Medieval Warm Period, about 300-years of increased warming. But the MWP is more of a small blip in the 11,300 years interval (as is the last 150 years).”
Anyway, the semantical difficulty can easily be corrected by replacing the word “confirms” with “is consistent with”, which I shall do. The other 669 words are OK.

I’ve decided that if Derrick thinks that that is alarmist, I’ll give him something to justify his accusations, still from a conservative climate scientist. My current estimate from having read nearly all the climate scientists’ papers and far too many GW Deniers’ papers, is: there’s about 5% chance of no significant change in global temperature average, and about 15% chance of catastrophic rise; and certainly 50% chance of economically serious ramifications.

Now, we all know that the AGW deniers are an undiplomatic, even cranky group. My colleagues are all puzzled by this, as it is so unscientific. One of the purposes of this blog is to uncover the reasons for this narrow- minded attitude (I’m sorry to use their techniques, apparently reading them rubs off on me. It does embarrass me — and my editor wife!).

So, Geoff Derrick’s bio reveals that he is an Australian geologist who has worked as a career doing geological maps for mining companies. This is what geologist’s do. As a geophysicist, my graduate education the first year was 1/3 atmospheric science, 1/3 oceanography and 1/3 geology, so I am a bit of geologist. It was an exciting time (mid ‘60s); in geology I learned that Wegener’s continental drift theory (a ‘fluid’ concept) was being verified by new data. This ‘new’ theory was denied by most conventionally trained geologists — but the data proved they were wrong (incredibly, some still hold out).

Geoff Derrick’s views and those he believes/respects, — “true” scientists like McIntyre, Ian Plimer (whose book purports to prove that “human-produced CO2 has no effect on the climate“) and other geologists have visibility because they seem to get vast amounts of money from somewhere to support their Global Warming science Denial. And they have this enormous confidence that allows them to dismiss both carefully done, complex paleoclimate data (admittedly up their alley, as long as it doesn’t involve fluid dynamics) and the climate scientists’ mathematics.
They pay NO attention to the consensus of thousands of these scientists, or to eminent physicists like Muller, who questioned the accuracy of the climate science, got grants (BEST) to do the data himself, and thereby concluded that the climate science temperature data was correct. And that the warming was anthopogenetically caused!

Now I remember previous occasions that probably have fed my implicit bias. At Berkeley, where at least a science class was required for graduation, there were classes from various science departments designed for non-scientists. The Geology one was most popular — it had a reputation for being easiest. I took it; I was a Mechanical Engineer at the time.

Later, when I took graduate level geophysics classes, Atmospheric Science and Oceanography were ten times as difficult as Geology, This was because in geology there’s relatively little mathematics — no requirement for understanding the differential equations of fluid dynamics (air & water in particular). Still, I love rocks, and have always appreciated this geology education.

I’ve mentioned before the dichotomy between the theoreticians (mathematics oriented) and experimentalists (the curve fitters to data) in most sciences, but there seems to be only the latter side in geology. Perhaps we need a new definition of ‘science’; that includes mathematics? This is the conclusion that I’m getting from reading the GW Denier ‘scientists’.
Thanks for the push to this clarification, Dr. Derrick.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.